crude oil

Just below one of the most productive shales in Texas is another treasure trove of crude oil. One layer underneath the Eagle Ford Shale is the Buda limestone formation, a sedimentary rock formation that is said to be twice as thick as the Eagle Ford in some areas.

This could mean that the Buda limestone potentially contains much more crude oil and hydrocarbon than the Eagle Ford. Current studies of the formation have not yet yielded definitive statistics.

Like its neighbor above, the Buda limestone needs to be drilled horizontally. But since the formation is already fractured naturally, it costs much less to drill and complete a well. There would be no need for expensive chemicals and sand mixtures to extract crude oil. And the rig models needed to dig the formation are less costly and more readily available.

Several companies have already tapped into the opportunities present in Buda limestone since the start of the decade. And it could not have come at a better time as the discovery of the abundance of crude oil in Buda came during a period of high oil price, and companies were looking to slash the cost of oil by increasing the supply.

Brian Alfaro is the founder and president of Primera Energy LLC, an oil and gas company headquartered in Texas. The company provides its shareholders with the highest quality, unconventional shale prospects. To read more about the company and the industry, follow this Facebook page.

North America is home to some of the largest oil fields in the world. The Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas is one of those, which was created about 100 million years ago when a gigantic swathe of forest was buried hundreds of feet beneath the ground (fossil fuels are organic in origin).

The geological formation has permeable rocks which have made it a prime target for oil and gas extraction. The most common method is hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, which uses a combination of water, sand, and some special substances to produce massive pressure inducing release of small pockets of oil and gas inside the rocks.

The Eagle Ford Shale yields both crude oil and natural gas. The oil reserves are estimated at 3 billion barrels, while technically recoverable gas is estimated to be at 50.2 trillion cubic feet. On average, a well can produce 2.36 billion cubic feet of gas. All these make the shale among the most important in Texas and North America as a whole.

Dozens of local and foreign companies tap into this resource to keep petroleum demands in the U.S. relatively manageable. According to a new study, 5,000 new wells could be built by 2020 in the area, a development which could generate 68,000 full-time jobs in the state alone. The economic output could reach billions of dollars.

Brian Alfaro is the founder and president of Primera Energy LLC, a leading hydrocarbon production company with significant operations in the Eagle Ford Shale and Barnett Shale in Texas. More about him and his company can be read here.

An oil shale is considered an unconventional hydrocarbon resource, whose reserves of oil are less abundant than those of crude oil or natural gas. However, it remains one of the most valuable fuel sources on a global scale. A fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (organic chemical compounds), an oil shale can be economically harnessed when crude oil prices rise. Below are the top three countries with the biggest recoverable reserves of shale oil and shale gas:

1. United States. Oil shale deposits in the country are the largest in the world, comprising nearly half of the planet’s total resources. The richest deposits, however, are found only in specific areas: Texas, Mississippi, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The U.S. is one of the very few countries in the world that produce shale oil and shale gas in commercial quantities.

2. China. At the far second, China has oil shale reserves of more than 30 billion metric tons, although only about 10 percent of which is technically exploitable. The top oil shale deposits and production in the country are concentrated in the Fushun and Liaoning regions.

3. Russia. From its Volga-Petchyorsk province and Baltic Oil Shale Basin reserves alone, Russia is easily among the most commercially feasible countries to exploit oil shale. Additionally, the country tops the world in terms of natural gas deposits.